


Together; in Darkness

by dornfelder



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Claustrophobic situations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, season 3b spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dornfelder/pseuds/dornfelder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes falling in love means taking a leap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together; in Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Slight spoilers for season 3b, but disregarding most of them.  
> Many thanks to angels_and_alcohol for beta reading.

A crash and splintering wood, dust and crumbling walls, the sensation of a fall and a _roar_ – clawed hands reaching for him, gripping him tightly. He's tossed through the air like a puppet without strings, colliding with bricks and wooden door frames. Sudden agony and a struggle for breath, coughing and yelling, from the top of his lungs, while someone holds on to him with brutal strength. Falling, falling into darkness and hitting the ground head-first, with timbers and walls collapsing to bury him underneath, and someone on top of him, sheltering him from the worst of it. Blacking out and coming to, not knowing how much time has passed or where he is.

Stiles coughs, repeatedly, lungs burning with the dust of concrete and age-old dirt, and he spits out blood and flaps of skin where he bit himself. He tries to open his eyes, succeeds after a second, but it makes no difference; he is surrounded by darkness. 

His body is an aching mess, some places throbbing with a dull pain, others smarting as he moves. He can feel all of his limbs, but the fingers of his left hand are numb, he can't move them properly. Trying to sit up, still coughing, he meets resistance – another human body, poised above him – and earns a curse in a rough voice. “Stay down.” 

Derek. 

Hands on his shoulders push him back down as he fails to obey, and Stiles coughs again, struggling feebly against the hold. 

“No room,” Derek says through gritted teeth. “Stay down.”

Realization kicks in. They are enclosed by the wreckage of the old Hale house, somewhere in the basement, he assumes, surrounded by tons of debris. Somehow, Derek managed to shelter them both and create a niche for them while the house came down around them. 

Its a tight, narrow space. 

Stiles tries very hard not to panic. 

“Oh God,” he mutters. “No oxygen. We need to get out.”

“We can’t,” Derek says and takes his hands away slowly. “There’s too much debris on top of us, I can’t dig us both out; we'll have to wait until Scott and the others come looking for us.”

“Great,” Stiles mutters. “We’ll suffocate.”

“No we won’t. There’s time, and there’s air flow coming through some of the cracks, I can feel it.”

Stiles starts fidgeting around, exploring the space around them with his right hand. Moving the fingers of his left hand hurts too much, they’re badly bruised, maybe broken. 

Derek is apparently supporting his weight with his arms, he’s basically on top of Stiles, but holds himself upright. Derek’s legs bracket his. They have little to no room to move. As soon as Stiles turns his head to the side, he hits another piece of rock. The ceiling is only inches above Derek’s head, so Stiles couldn’t sit up if even Derek weren’t there.

“You’re bleeding,” Derek says. “It’s your head. How bad is it?”

Now that Derek has told him, Stiles can feel the wetness in his hair. He brings a hand up, awkwardly maneuvering around Derek’s arms to touch the wound and hisses at the sting. “Just a cut, I think,” he says, wincing when the feels a trickle of what must be blood creep into the collar of his shirt. “I don’t feel dizzy or anything.” 

He takes a deep breath, coughing again. “Fuck, how did this even happen? That harpy was freakishly strong, but I didn’t think she would bring the whole house down.”

“It should have been pulled down long ago,” Derek says, voice rough. “I knew the walls weren't stable anymore.”

“Yeah, but … it belongs to the county anyway. I guess they didn't think anyone was around here anymore.”

Derek says nothing, and Stiles tries to recall the exact order of events that landed them here. “Did the harpy get away?”

“Yeah.”

“Crap. That’s one more for Scott and Allison to hunt down. I hope Ethan helps.”

“Peter is around. He'll know what to do.”

“Dude, no offense, but your uncle isn’t exactly the helpful type.” Pretending they’re somewhere else helps, imagining they're just having a chat. Talking helps too, keeps him from freaking out.

“They are going to find us,” Derek says. “We only need to hang on until they do.”

“Easy for you to say! You’re probably all healed up again already. I’m human, I’m the one bleeding here.”

“I could dig myself out,” Derek says, “but not you as well. What do you suggest we do?”

“Hey, no need to be an asshole,” Stiles says. “I know I’m only the weak human, no need to rub it in.”

“And you’re the one who refused to stay safe at home,” Derek points out, sounding pissed-of.

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” Stiles mutters, because as much as it pains him to say, Derek is right. Scott and Derek both wanted him to stay out of it. “But you have to admit I got a shot in before the house collapsed. It could be worse. She could have torn you apart with those talons. So you’re welcome for literally saving your guts.” 

Who knew that harpies considered werewolf intestines a delicacy? The bitch hadn't spared Stiles a second glance, just gone straight for Derek, positively drooling. 

“You’re welcome for me getting buried alive to save yours,” Derek snaps back. “I could be out there hunting her down it it weren’t for you.”

“If it weren’t for the death trap that was your family’s house, you mean.”

“Shut up, Stiles.”

“No!” Stiles protests immediately. “If I shut up, I start to think about where we are, and I really don’t want to. Keep talking. Keep insulting me, I don’t care.”

It sounds as if Derek is grinding his teeth. “I don’t want to insult you.”

“Oh, okay. Good.” 

The moment of silence already stretches too long, so Stiles blurts out, “Say something.”

“What?”

“Anything. Anything, really, can’t you just – no, you’re Derek freaking Hale, of course you can’t, I don’t know what I was expecting.” Stiles starts to laugh. “Expecting you to talk, that’s like – ironic, isn’t it? You can’t communicate to save your ass. Or mine.”

He laughs again, coughs, tries to fill his lungs with air, and fails. “Oh, fuck.”

“Stiles,” Derek says. 

“What? What, I...” and he rest is lost in another fit of coughing, trying to get some air. “Derek,” he forces out. 

“Stiles, calm down. Stiles!”

Derek slaps his face, once, a sharp sting, and Stiles takes a deep breath, his eyes watering. “Wow. You asshole.” Takes another deep breath. “Fuck. I don't care. Keep talking.”

“Okay,” Derek says. “Okay.” A deep exhale, seconds passing. “Sorry for hitting you.”

“Don’t be,” Stiles says. “Though I liked Lydia’s way better.”

“Lydia’s what?”

“Her way. Of stopping a panic attack.” Stiles snickers as he imagines Derek’s face, confused, maybe a little angry. “She kissed me.”

Derek snorts, and Stiles tries ineffectively to kick him. Derek simply uses forces his leg down with his knee on top of Stiles' though. “Don’t,” he growls, and Stiles gives in. But the movement made something dig painfully in his butt and when he wriggles a little, he realizes that it is his keys.

“Hold on. Wait. Just let me – just a second.”

It takes a few attempts and a bit of awkward fumbling to get to his keys and much more importantly, the flashlight attached to his key ring. It’s tiny, made for finding his key lock at night.

Derek hisses as Stiles hand brushes his thigh. “Stop that.”

“Just a second,” Stiles says again. “Gotta get –“ He lifts his butt, fingers scraping through dirt and pebbles, but then he gets a hold of the key ring and pulls it out. “Got it.”

With thumb and forefinger he turns the head, and the flashlight flickers then thankfully stays on. 

It's a mixed blessing, because when Stiles lifts it and directs it toward the ceiling he sees how much space they _don’t_ have. “Fuck.”

But at least he can see a little now, can look at Derek, whose eyes shine eerily blue. “The light won’t last long, but it’s better than nothing.” 

Stiles wishes he still had his cell phone, but it got lost while he was trying to call Scott and the harpy, obviously more intelligent than he'd thought, had taken one casual swipe at him that tossed the phone against the wall. “Your cell?” 

“Left it in the car”, Derek reminds him, and, right, Stiles had forgotten about that.

“We're screwed.” As if to prove his words, the flashlight flickers. Crap. When did he last change the batteries? “Okay. I'm going to turn it off again – there's no use in wasting power, we're clearly not going anywhere.”

He hesitates, finding comfort in the the light. “You – you're not going to disappear if I turn out the light, are you?” 

Sometimes it's still hard to remember what's real and what isn't. The fact that he's got a better grip on reality hasn't really done anything to alleviate the fear. Maybe he's not actually in danger of losing his mind anymore, but he sure as hell is still _afraid_ of losing it. It takes two attempts to turn off the light with badly shaking fingers. As it finally goes out, they are left in darkness and silence again. “This is terrifying.”

Derek grunts, which is something, at least. He also shifts his weight, and that – that breaks the contact between them, where Derek's knees and thighs were touching Stiles' legs, and while he can still hear Derek breathing, and almost-feel the warmth emanating from him, it's decidedly worse than before, and Stiles takes another shaky breath and says, “Can you – I don't know, touch me?” 

Touch helps a lot. Now that the others – Scott, Lydia, his father – know that as well, he's getting more of it, and it's fine, most of the time, but here – in the dark, with only his mind and Derek's quiet presence for company, it feels like he could use an extra dose. “Please.”

He hates how his voice almost breaks at the word, but he doesn't want to have to explain – he doesn't know how much Derek knows, whether Scott told him, because Stiles sure as hell didn't. 

Derek huffs and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Better?”

“Yeah.” 

Derek's hand is warm and steady and Stiles relaxes slightly. 

There's a short period of silence, too long by far.

“Do you think – shouldn't Scott have found the other one by now, and killed it? Maybe he's already on his way back here. They could come looking for us any minute.”

“Stiles.”

“How long has it been? Half an hour? How long was I out?”

“About ten minutes.”

“That's ...” Stiles' brain starts to calculate, and he doesn't even try to filter, just blurts it all out. “Scott and Allison were at the river, that's fifteen minutes by car. If they got the other one already ...” 

“Stiles,” Derek says, which is enough to give Stiles a pause. 

“What?”

“They'll find us,” Derek says, and sighs. “But it might take a while.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. “Yeah.”

“We'll be fine.”

“That's easy for you to say.”

Frustration bleeds through as Derek says, “What else do you want me to say?”

“I don't know.” 

Where Derek is touching him, warmth seeps through the fabric of Stiles' shirt, bringing it to Stiles' attention that he's cold pretty much everywhere else. “I'm sorry you're stuck with me,” he says. “You could get out if it weren't for me.” He shivers.

The only reaction is a slight shift of Derek's fingers on his shoulder. 

How many times have they been stuck together like this? On a stakeout in front of the hospital. In his jeep with Derek bleeding all over the upholstery. That was the first time, actually. It's hard to keep track sometimes. In a swimming pool, with a murderous lizard circling the perimeter. None of these times were this quiet, none of them were this dark. Stiles has gotten used to taking his cues from Derek's face, his expression, his body language; not being able to see him now is … disconcerting. 

Stiles bites his lip. “You saved my life. Thanks for that.”

Derek snorts. But that's everything he does, and the silence is rapidly becoming a problem. 

“I guess you're regretting it now,” Stiles mutters. Something tickles his lungs, and he coughs, his chest hurting with the strain. Maybe he has broken a rib or two. He hopes not. His left hand still hurts, and he tries to move his fingers, just a little. It doesn't feel like it accomplishes much, and it hurts, so he stops and tries to come up with something to say. Derek's fingers dig into his shoulder a little harder before the pressure eases up again.

“You could have let me fall, but you didn't.” Stiles says. Which, admittedly, isn't really a surprise, and he pictures Derek's eye roll in his mind. 

As if on cue, Derek says, “Don't be an idiot. I wouldn't let you die.“

“No, I guess you wouldn't. That's what we do, isn't it? Save each other's lives.” He wonders whether Derek remembers all those life-and-death situations just as vividly, whether it means something to him at all that they've gone through all of this together. It's kind of … a bonding experience. They totally bonded over almost getting killed repeatedly. 

Stiles snickers, even though it's not really funny.

“What now,” Derek says.

“Nothing. Nothing, just – I guess this wasn't what you signed up for when you came back. It's our fault, actually – mine, and Scott's and Allison's. We did this.”

“Yes, because you had to,” Derek says almost immediately. “Not your fault, Stiles.”

If they weren't confined in a narrow, dark space, with no one else around, nothing to distract him – if Derek's voice, Derek's touch weren't what Stiles is focusing on to anchor himself – then he wouldn't have noticed the slight hitch in Derek's breath, or the very subtle emphasis on one word. 

“Yeah, well, not yours either,” Stiles says. “It's the alpha pack that was responsible in the first place, and the darach.”

Derek laughs, a harsh, scratchy sound. “You seemed to think differently when she had your father tied up under the nemeton.”

It takes a second for Stiles to catch up. 

The hospital, and a rush of angry words. _Your psychotic mass-murdering girlfriend – the second one you’ve dated, by the way._

“I'm sorry for that,” he says, and it feels weirdly as if it were a belated, long-owed apology, even though the thought he might owe it to Derek never came to his mind. “I was -” _terribly upset, scared, out of my mind_ – only that he knows now that being out of one's mind is something different altogether. And it's not really an excuse. “I shouldn't have said that. And the thing about Kate. I'm sorry.”

“Why?” Derek says. “You said nothing that wasn't true..”

“No! It's not – it wasn't your fault, Derek, you know that, right?” In the ensuing silence, it occurs to him that maybe Derek _doesn't_ know. “It's really not,” Stiles says and takes Derek's sigh as a sign that Derek isn’t going to believe him any time soon. 

“It's not like anyone of us could have known,” Stiles says, more to himself than to Derek. In the days, weeks following the lunar eclipse, he's tried to convince himself. He hasn't more success now than he had before, but one day, he will achieve victory.

“Hey, do you have anything to eat?” It's a stupid question, and he grimaces and shifts his weight. The cold is seeping in from underneath now, making him shiver. It will get worse, now that it has come to his attention. 

“Are you all right?” Derek asks.

“What? Yeah. I mean, it could be better, like, we could be not trapped in this hole, but considering we're trapped in this hole, it could also be worse. I'm fine. Given the circumstances.” 

A bit redundant, but who cares? Derek's fingers are warm. Really warm. And Derek shifts his weight again and grunts, as if he's uncomfortable, which – which makes sense, actually, with the way he's bracing himself on his arms, sheltering Stiles. 

“Hey, we could – maybe we could move a little, I could turn to my side. Would that be better?” Stiles suggests, and starts twisting before Derek can react. He moves slowly, mindful of his injuries, but it hurts nevertheless and he can't suppress a pained hiss. 

“Stop,” Derek says. “It's not necessary, I can ...” 

Stiles manages to turn to his side, colliding with Derek's chest, who curses and lets go of him. It leaves Derek with no choice but to shift his weight to the side to compensate, occupying the room Stiles just made, and eventually he relents with a surly grunt and slides in the space beside Stiles. It takes a bit of cautious maneuvering – Stiles' legs need a while to get the message that they, too, are meant to turn – and then they are lying chest to chest, with maybe an inch or two between them.

Which, Stiles is honest enough to admit it, was somehow the goal of the exercise. He feels Derek's breath against his neck. His head somehow came to rest on Derek's arm, which makes for a surprisingly good pillow. 

“Is this okay?” Stiles asks, and Derek grunts, which could mean anything from, “it's fine” to “no, get off of me.”

Stiles' right hand is trapped under his body, which is unfortunate. He brings the left one up to put it on his hip. It's throbbing like crazy, and he doesn't want to know what it looks like – is kind of grateful, in fact, that he doesn't have to see. 

They're weirdly, intimately close now, and he wishes he could tell what Derek is thinking about this. Derek, who doesn't permit touch, doesn't accept it. 

Thought that isn't quite true, is it? 

There _is_ someone Derek allows to touch him. Stiles blinks, surprised, and there's the impression of a hand before his mind's eye, his own hand on Derek's shoulder, sliding up and down the tiniest bit – in an elevator, at the hospital, after Scott had gone with Deucalion. And that one time ... Stiles fingers twitch as he recalls it vividly, his right hand curling around Derek's shoulder after a short moment of hesitation – not knowing whether he was allowed, but knowing he just had to, with Cora sobbing over Boyd's body while Derek was kneeling there, in shock – 

actually, he's been touching Derek quite a lot. 

It's a revelation, and he almost misses Derek saying his name.

“What?” Stiles asks, distracted. Blinks again.

“You weren't talking.”

“Huh?” Stiles turns his head in surprise. “Are you actually complaining about me being too quiet?”

He would be disappointed if Derek didn't glower at him now. 

“You never shut up. You have a head wound.” As if the line of thought behind it didn't need to be explained, as if the connection was evident. Which it is, for Stiles. 

“You want me to keep talking?”

“Don't fall asleep,” Derek says. 

Which is all the permission Stiles needs to keep on rambling. “Aw. You care, admit it.”

“No,” Derek says, deadpan. “I am just charmed by your witty spirit.”

“Har-de-har.” Stiles brain does funny things, providing him with more unbidden images. Derek, pushing him against the door of his room. Derek, pushing him to the side, shoving him out of the line of danger. Stiles’ hand circling and holding Derek's wrist as they are arguing in the loft, next to a desk covered with construction plans. By no means a gentle touch, and yet, Derek permitted it. His hand touching Derek's forearm, just the slightest of touches, and Derek looking at him insistently before leaving him in the ambulance with Cora. 

“You _do_ care,” Stiles says absentmindedly. 

Derek exhales, and whoa, Stiles somehow missed that they were so close that their legs are touching and Derek's jacket touches his shirt, so it's definitely less than an inch between them now. 

It's a daring move, but Stiles does it anyway, puts his damaged, swollen hand on top of Derek's arm. “It's all right. I do too.”

Derek freezes. 

Stiles lets his hand slide over Derek's upper arm, curling around his elbow for a moment, moving up again, coming to rest on Derek's shoulder. Derek's breath hitches, and he's all tension – coiled muscle, barely constrained power, ready to spring – and then breathes out, slowly, and his forehead seeks out Stiles' in darkness, his arm curls around Stiles' waist, and the inch of space is _gone_.

Derek is subtly, silently shaking, and clinging to Stiles, his breath labored and wheezy. Agonized. Stiles doesn't think, just throws both arms around him and holds on.

Derek inhales deeply. His nose brushes Stiles' – Eskimo kisses, his mum called them – and for a second, Stiles doesn't know whether it happened by accident, but then Derek does it _again_ , and then his mouth brushes along Stiles’ cheek, his temple. Derek's _nuzzling_ him, and holding him close as if he can't get enough. It's intense, unexpected, and Stiles doesn't know what to make of it. 

This is Derek, Derek Hale, who rarely shows his feelings, who lets his eyebrows speak for him and his crossed arms, who keeps people at a distance – whose lips are sliding along Stiles' jaw, grazing his skin ever so slightly.

“Derek?” Stiles whispers, half afraid to break the spell, and in reaction, Derek's arm tightens around him. 

“Oh. Okay,” Stiles says. 

A tremor is wrecking Derek. His heartbeat under Stiles’ hands is strong but fast – too fast. “It's okay. Listen to me, everything will be fine. It's just – it's all kinds of fucked-up to be trapped here, I get it.”

That isn't what this is about, though. Stiles brings his right hand up to curl around Derek's head from underneath, and touch his hair, surprisingly soft and silky. He can feel Derek's stubble on his cheek, yes, it's happening now, they are cheek to cheek and if Stiles turns his head just so – _just so_ – their lips meet for the briefest of moments.

It feels strange, not quite fitting either category of kisses that Stiles has ever experienced. It's on the mouth, but so chaste, and dry, just a press of lips against lips. 

“What are we doing?” Stiles whispers.

Derek abruptly turns his head to the side so that their heads are no longer touching. “I'm sorry.”

“No!” 

Derek flinches, and Stiles hastens to correct himself. “I mean, you don't need to be sorry, it was fine. I just don't know – is this a reaction thing, as in, we're trapped and this is how we deal with the panic, or is it a werewolf thing, or – a Derek thing?”

He doesn't expect Derek to reply, not really, but Derek mutters something, and it sounds suspiciously like – 

“Come again?” Stiles asks softly.

“You. Just you,” Derek says, in a flat, desperate voice, unlike anything that Stiles has ever heard him say. Derek Hale is falling apart in his arms, and Stiles – Stiles can't be the reason, this can't possibly be true, in what universe does this make any kind of sense? 

“You mean – what do you mean? Derek, what are you saying?”

Derek doesn't say anything, but when Stiles tightens his hold – wincing, because his left hand really doesn't approve of the strain – Derek slowly, gradually, relaxes into it and settles down and burrows his head into Stiles' shoulder. The shaking abides and so does the tension, until he is lax and pliant in Stiles’ arms.

This … this is so weird. 

Stiles cards his fingers through Derek's hair a few times and then stops because his fingers go numb from the awkward angle. He just holds on, and that seems to be okay. For once he doesn't need to talk. He's not even afraid of drifting into darkness, because Derek is right there with him.

~~~~~

Minutes or hours later, Derek suddenly goes still, lifts his head from Stiles' shoulder. 

“What?” Stiles asks sleepily. He may have dozed off for a while.

“They're here. Scott and Allison. They're here.” 

“Really?” 

“Cover your ears,” Derek says, and leaves Stiles no room to reply. He takes a deep breath, opens his mouth and lets out a howl – one of these partly subsonic, eerie howls that make Stiles' hair stand on end, knowing he can't hear everything there is, but the part he _can_ hear is really, really uncanny. Finally Derek stops and waits, for seconds that expand into a small eternity. Stiles slowly takes his hands from his ears. Derek is holding himself very still. He exhales explosively. “They heard me. They know we're here.”

It takes more than an hour, even with Isaac and the twins helping. For the last part, Derek slides on top of Stiles again, sheltering him, poised above him like a wolf mother protecting her cubs. And Stiles holds on to him, one hand on his shoulder or his chest, making sure they keep touching – making sure that Derek knows he's there, that maybe Stiles can't help, needs to be protected right now – but that they're yet together in this. 

Finally they're out, and everything's bright and cold. Derek jumps out of the hole, and someone – Lydia? – is calling an ambulance while Scott carefully lifts Stiles up and out of the hole and lies him down on a blanket. Everything hurts, which is the reason it takes Stiles too long to realize that while his friends are all around him, caring for him, Derek is already gone. 

~~~~~

Two broken fingers, a superficial head wound, a scratched up leg and a lot of ugly-looking bruises pretty much everywhere. Even with painkillers, Stiles’ whole body is one sore, aching mess. Which was to be expected, but isn’t really fair, considering that Scott and Allison brought down both harpies without so much as a scratch on either of their pretty heads.

His father hovers at his bedside, while Melissa is ripping Scott a new one right in front of Stiles' room for putting Stiles in danger, which is seriously unfair, but at the moment, there's very little Stiles can do about it. His left arm is in a cast, and he's connected to an IV to prevent him from going into shock, or something.

Also, his dad. Hovering. 

“Stiles.”

“Dad.”

“This has to stop.”

“Not my fault,” Stiles protests. “The house was a death trap, I’ve told Derek that before.”

“This isn't about the house. You shouldn't have been there in the first place,” his dad says through thin lips. 

Stiles rolls his eyes, which is silent speak for, “dad, you know me.” 

And his father sighs, seems to shrink in himself – looks far too old for a moment – before he pulls himself together and steps outside. Stiles sees him laying a hand on Melissa's shoulder, interrupting her mid-rant. Scott's expression is one of pure, unadulterated gratitude.

While the voices calm down in the corridor, Stiles is left with room to think. Here, with the bright artificial lights and the background noise of the hospital – beeps and heels and the elevator door binging, and a nurse carting a wheelchair while chatting with their patient – he's safe, he's resting on soft pillows under a blanket, he's being taken care of. 

But he's wide awake and feels weirdly unsettled.

Where has Derek gone? Has someone taken him home? Given him a ride at least? Even if he heals by himself, doesn't need medical attention – he needs someone to take care of him as well, someone to send him to take a long, hot shower, wrap him in a blanket – someone to fuss over him. He was in that dark, cold, hole too, he was there to protect Stiles – has anyone even said, “thank you”? 

Where's Derek now? Home, all alone? Probably. 

He shouldn't be. 

~~~~~

Stiles has trouble falling asleep, but finally, with the painkillers kicking in and exhaustion weighing him down, he just goes under. 

When he wakes up in the morning, he feels a lot better. They send him home with a couple of prescriptions and a sick note that gives him the rest of the week off – which is nice, seeing as it is only Tuesday. 

His dad drives him home, helps him getting comfortable on the sofa with soda, sandwiches and the remote. His wistful gaze lingers on the blanket a little too long. It's kind of carelessly draped over Stiles at this point, and Stiles has his suspicions that his dad is secretly longing to tug him in. 

But then his dad has to go back to work, and Stiles is left to his own devices, with order to call if he needs anything. As if. 

For the first two days, he does little else but watch TV in a daze and sleep a lot. There's something nagging at the edge of his mind, but he doesn't pay it a lot of attention.

On the third day, after his post-breakfast nap, he wakes up feeling almost like his old self. He doesn't have a new cell phone yet, so he can't text Scott, which is unfortunate and really inconvenient. Because his hands are itching, somehow, and it's not that he wants to text Scott as much as ... that he wants to call Derek. 

Fuck.

He wouldn't even know what to say. Still. It sucks. It's making him restless too; he can't seem to settle on the couch. But even if he had a phone, he hasn't memorized Derek's number, and he sincerely doubts Derek has a land line. 

So. There's not much he can do. 

Except that it will be hours before school is out, before his father's shift ends, and he's already sick of the days' program on TV and he doesn't want to watch Breaking Bad anymore, it's giving him too many ill-advised ideas. 

And then there's Mrs Connell, who lives next door and usually goes to work shortly before noon, and maybe, if he asks nicely, he can convince her to give him a ride downtown. It wouldn’t be the first time. The neurologist where he gets his Aderall prescriptions has his medical office right across the street from her workplace.

~~~~

That’s how, quarter to twelve, Stiles is standing in front of Derek’s house, testing the front door to find it unlocked, and sighs. Fate obviously wants him to do this. 

A huge sign in the hallway announces that the elevator is out of commission, immediately raising doubts about his premature conclusion. As he clatters up the stairs, Stiles has to take a break every couple of steps. He's not exactly sneaky either, so it's not a surprise that by the time he reaches his destination, more than slightly out of breath, Derek has already opened the door. Not too wide, just enough to give Stiles an impression of disapproving eyebrows. Derek's clearly not amused. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Derek. Nice to see you too,” Stiles says. “Do you know your elevator isn't working?”

Derek shrugs. 

“Are you going to let me in, or do I have to keep standing here while you glare at me?”

Derek rolls his eyes, but he steps aside and lets Stiles in. He watches, with an almost neutral yet faintly quizzical expression, as Stiles steps into the center of the room and turns around to face him. For a second, Stiles wonders. Derek seems so aloof. What happened in the hole – was is even real? After two days of vivid nightmares that, more often than not, featured suffocating in darkness, with Derek making an appearance as either a monster or a wet dream fantasy, he can't tell anymore. The whole thing is so surreal, it might as well have been a fantasy, something his mind made up to help him cope. 

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he stares at Derek, who is staring right back from a carefully guarded distance, arms crossed at his chest. 

So Stiles wets his lips and blurts out, “Did you – did you kiss me down there? You did, didn't you? It happened. I didn't just imagine it, or anything?” 

Derek averts his gaze, staring straight ahead at whatever fancy thing he sees at the bare wall. 

“Derek. Please, don't make me – just tell me it was real.” Stiles knows he's being pathetic, but he needs to know. Needs to hear it. 

Derek shrugs, still avoiding his gaze. “It was.”

“Okay. That's good, that's – but why?”

“Does it matter?” Derek asks, and now he's looking at Stiles blankly. “You shouldn't be here.”

This sentence could mean so many things. That Derek doesn't want him here. That the thinks Stiles shouldn't be here but at home, recovering on the couch. That he wants him here but doesn't think he's allowed to say so. Though that – may be a bit of a stretch. Or not? 

Derek doesn't wait for a reply, walking toward the kitchen area. Stiles tags along like a tool. On the counter, a half-empty coffee cup is sitting next to a cutting board full of sliced up potatoes, surrounded by potato peels. Other vegetables – onions, carrots and bell peppers, with a stem of celery on top – are having a happy orgy in the sink, while a huge empty pot occupies the largest range on the glass-ceramic cooktop. 

It gives Stiles a jolt to realize that he intruded, that he gets to see a part of Derek's life that has been hidden from him. Not that it ever came to his mind to think about it before. He looks around, sees the hard cover book resting on the armchair, the magazine on the couch table next to the TV. Since when does Derek have one? It must be recent, just as the grocery shopping list on the fridge, a plain A4 sheet tied with a strawberry magnet. 

Derek has come back to stay. 

“What do you want, Stiles?” Derek asks, and he's not looking at him now, he's looking down at the potatoes and resuming the slicing. 

“I wanted to know how you are.” Stiles resents talking to Derek's back, even though it is a nice view. The set of Derek's shoulders is almost as expressive as his eyebrows, but not quite. At the moment, they're just telling him that Derek is rather tense. Not exactly helpful. 

For a moment, down there, he had felt connection between them – something forged by accident, fragile, but real nonetheless. He had felt rather than thought that they _were_ something – and Derek kissing him sure hadn't done anything to derail him from that notion.

“I'm fine,” Derek says. “I heal, remember?”

As if it the experience of being trapped in the dark meant nothing. As if being enclosed by rubble and stone was just another one in an endless loop of unpleasant experiences, as if it wasn’t worth consideration that the worst thing about it were not the physical injuries but the psychicological trauma.

If Derek hadn't been down there with him, Stiles would have gone literally insane, and even so, the experience had been enough to cause him nightmares. Not that he needed more of them on top of the nemeton-related horror stuff that he deals with on a nightly basis. 

But what use is there in pointing that out to Derek? Stiles can predict his reply pretty accurately. _I'm fine, Stiles._

This here – back and forth, meaningless phrases – doesn't get them anywhere, so Stiles takes a deep breath. “I meant what I said, you know. I do. Care about you.” 

It hasn’t always been the case. But at some point, that changed, and now it's definitely true, even though Stiles didn't know before. 

Derek's hands stop moving. He puts the knife down glacially slowly and turns around. “You care? Since when?” 

He is looking at Stiles with narrow, hostile eyes. Stiles swallows. “Does it matter? I do. I just do. I don't want you to get hurt.”

Derek gives a laugh, all scorn and sarcasm. “You care. What does that even mean?” Every word is like a shard, edgy and cutting. “And why should I believe you?”

Stiles lifts his hands in frustration. It's maddening, how stubborn Derek is, how Stiles has to be the one to clear up this mess when Derek is supposed to be the grown-up. “I don't get it. One moment, you kiss me, the next, you're out of there without so much as a backward glance, leaving me behind – leaving me –“

Derek snarls. His eyes flash blue. With one step he's crossed the distance between them, shoving Stiles until his back hits the wall. Stiles yells in pain as his bruised ribs collide forcefully with the hard surface, and Derek's hands grip his shoulders so tight that it hurts. 

“I didn't leave you. _I didn't leave you._ They wouldn't let me go with you. Scott told me to stay back, to go home. He told me he'd take care of you, and that you were his … _His_ responsibility. _His_ pack.” Derek spits out the words as if they are a venom, as if they've been poisoning him from the inside. 

“That … I didn't know that,” Stiles whispers. Of course Scott would say something like that, of course. It's just what he does, thinking nothing of it. _Go home, Derek, I'll take care of him now._

Stiles closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath, wriggles a little to take pressure from his bruised tailbone. Makes sure that his left hand, sheltered by the cast, is out of the way. “I'm sorry. It's just … I missed you. One moment, you were there, keeping me safe, grounding me. Then you were gone and they wheeled me around, and I didn't think. I just missed you.”

“Don't say things like that,” Derek whispers, and his grip has lost its strength. He lets go of Stiles entirely, not even looking at him anymore, staring to the ground insistently. “You don't –“

“You kissed me,” Stiles says shakily. “Did you mean it? I just need to know.”

“Why?” Derek asks, lifting his head. His eyes are human again, moss and gold and hazel, with a lost, far away expression. 

“Because I don't know what to make of it! You – you're such an asshole sometimes. People don't go around kissing me out of nowhere. They don't line up in a queue or something, so you gotta tell me, was it just – I don't know some werewolfy thing, just … comfort, or pack behavior or whatever? Wwhat does it mean?”

Derek's gaze focuses on him, turns heated, and Stiles has one moment to think, _what the actual fuck_ , before Derek cups his face and tilts it upward and kisses him, fully on the mouth, once, and Stiles – 

Stiles stands there, open-mouthed, possibly drooling – 

until Derek takes a step back from him. “Does that answer your question?” he asks.

“What? Yes! I mean, no, Derek, what the fuck?” 

Derek turns around without looking at him, returning to the kitchen. “You should go.”

“No! You can't – you can't just kiss me like that and throw me out!”

“I just did.”

Stiles wants to smash something. Preferably the skull of the asshole werewolf he's glaring at. “I don't get it. I just don't. One moment you – and then –”

Derek's shoulders are a line of tension. “Get out of here,” he says, hands clenching around the counter's edge.

Stiles' lips are tingling, so he wets them, gathering his courage. “Do you really want me to?

A crack, and the sound of splintering wood, and Derek's claws just sank into the counter. 

Stiles blinks, and while there's a corner of his brain telling him he should be afraid, he realizes that it's not really the wood that is cracking here, that's only a symptom – it's Derek. 

He takes a step forward, then another. Derek's shoulders stiffen even further. But he's not moving, standing there as if he's too scared to move.

Stiles swallows around the lump in his throat, and takes another step, until he is close enough to carefully lay a hand on Derek's shoulder. “I don't want to leave.”

“Everyone leaves.” It's a mere whisper, as if it isn't Derek Hale saying it, but someone else, someone trapped inside of him, buried so deep that it takes the greatest effort to be heard at all. The real Derek.

And he's right, of course he is. Derek's whole family is gone – Laura was killed, and Peter, who killed her, is still around, but that's not even a mixed blessing, it's a landmine waiting for everyone to forget about it before going off at the worst possible moment. Derek's pack – Erica and Boyd, dead. Jackson, gone. Isaac, living with Scott. Cora – she's _somewhere,_ and Stiles hopes she's happy and well, but obviously she's also not interested in staying with her brother.

Literally everyone who Derek was ever close to abandoned him, and that's – 

that's not something Stiles can think about right now.

And yet, Derek is here. 

“You left too,” Stiles says. His anger has evaporated like a cloud of steam. “You came back. You came back here. Why?” 

“I thought – I don't know what I thought,” Derek says, and Stiles thinks he can hear the other Derek say, _because I had nowhere else to go._ “There is nothing – nothing left.” 

It's the things that Derek doesn't say that get to him. “I'm here,” Stiles says with a lump in his throat.

Derek turns around, dismissing Stiles’ words with a biter laugh. “You're not here for me. And you have no reason to be, I'm not – you're seventeen. You have your friends, Scott, your father – Lydia. Your whole life ahead of you – you don't need me to fuck that up for you.”

“What about you?” Stiles asks. “What do you want?” He considers his words, realizes he should have phrased the question differently. “What do you need, Derek?”

“Why do you care?”

“I just do.” Stiles gives Derek the only answer he has. “I'm here because I want to be. I'm here for you. And not for you to give me anything, or because I need your help. Just for you. And I … I can't say that it's always going to be that way, that I'll never leave, or that ... that it'll be forever. Because we both know that’s not how it works. But – I just wish it was enough. Me being here, because I want to. For you. I don't know what this is, but it's – something? I'd be okay with being friends. More, if you want to. Not gonna lie to you about that, but – friends. Friends first, and everything else ... let's just wait and see? 

Derek looks at him, doubt in his eyes, wariness – and Stiles can't blame him, he hasn't given Derek a lot of reason to trust him. But what else can he say, except for the truth, and hope him to believe Stiles? 

Then Derek sighs, and his shoulders slump. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Stiles repeats, and his heart immediately beats faster with elation, relief. “Yeah. That's – good?”

Derek still doesn't look convinced, he's still holding back, avoiding his gaze – he's still afraid, but of what, Stiles can't tell. 

“You need to say something,” Stiles prompts. “You need to spell it out for me; I can't read your mind.” Something Scott said, once, it’s in the corner of Stiles’ brain but not important right now. 

“My mind – you have no idea. You don't know ...”

“Then tell me,” Stiles says gently.

Derek lifts his eyes, looking straight at him. “I want you to be mine.”

Stiles gapes. Derek says nothing else, just looks at him, and the words are pretty straight forward, leave little room for interpretation – they're not what you say to someone who is just a friend. They're not what you should say to a teenager who is so much younger than you.

“Oh,” Stiles says faintly, because he doesn't know what else to do. 

Derek shrugs, failing at the attempt to pass it off as casual. His shoulders are hunched. “You wanted me to say it. You wanted to know.”

“Yeah. But. What do you mean, when you say, you want be to be yours? Yours in like – locking me up to keep me for yourself? Or –“

“Stiles,” Derek says, and this time, it's so gentle, so soft, that Stiles almost breaks. “You should go. This is not what you want, this isn't – this isn't what you came here for.”

And there's the path laid out for him, in detail. 

Stiles can leave, and go back home. In the evening, his father will bring Chinese take-out, and Scott will drop by, and maybe Lydia will call. He can go home, fall asleep in his bed and spend the next few days at home lazing around until Scott tells him that he tried to get a hold of Derek but Derek didn’t answer his phone, and the loft is deserted, the Toyota gone from the driveway. 

And they will wait and wonder, and refuse to believe, but in the end, they will just have to accept that Derek is gone, that he's not going to come back. They will finish high school and, provided they survive the experience, go to college, have a career, make new friends, have one-night-stands and relationships and, eventually, a family. They will grow older, and then old, and in one tiny corner of his mind, Stiles will always wonder what happened to Derek, whether he found happiness somewhere else, something worth living for.

The thought hurts, hurts with an acuteness that takes him by surprise, because Stiles doesn't want that, doesn't think he can bear it. 

The other path – the one that Derek seems convinced Stiles won't take – lies in darkness, obscured by shadows and full of uncertainties. There's the chance to take the wrong turn and get lost – but there's also, maybe, the chance to find treasure, and reward. To find out what kind of movie Derek likes, and what he eats for breakfast, whether he likes his chili as hot as Stiles does, whether he, too, has an embarrassing preference for early nineties progressive rock. What his eyes look like when he laughs under a bright Californian summer sun, genuinely happy. 

One way, landscaped in broad daylight, all sharp, clear lines, and the other – less so, but it's the possibility that draws Stiles in, the promise. Stiles isn't afraid of the darkness. Not anymore. Not when he knows that Derek will be right there with him, and one day – one day they might make it safely to the other side, step into the sunshine. 

It's a choice he has to make, and maybe this is what Derek meant to say and couldn't: that he wants Stiles to choose him. That he wants Stiles to care enough to take the chance. 

And Stiles wants to take it, he wants to be the person Derek allows to touch, the one who gets to see Derek like this, unguarded, laid bare.

When it comes down to it, the decision is easy.

“This is exactly what I came here for,” Stiles says with a smile. “How about we find out whether we can make it work?”

Derek looks at him skeptically and Stiles takes a step toward him, daring. Leans in to kiss Derek, who meets him halfway, and it's soft and tentative and unsure – 

it's not sparks and fireworks and rainbows, but it's real, it's _them_. It's a choice. A beginning.


End file.
